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This morning I was going to make one of those long, reasoned, essay-style posts about this, and some discussions I've had in person and online recently about professionalism, credentialism, and the weird, threatened reaction a lot of writers/editors at all levels seem to have towards self-publishing and NaNoWriMo and the like, which is only equalled by the weird, threatened reaction that a lot of beginning or self-published writers seem to have towards professional publishing and those who work in it at any capacity.
It would have been elegant and explained its terms and employed both data and anecdata, and the writing of it would have eaten up my entire lunch hour today.
I want to hang out with my workfriends with what's left of my lunch instead, so I will not write that post. I will write this thing shorter.
Let's be straight here.
The way I see it, the problem isn't that self-published authors actually! make people think! they're as good as you! or that those uptight, pursed-lips, stick-up-the-butt New York writers are such! elitist! bastards! or that some other person is standing in the way of your dream, rightful realization thereof, or rightful recognition due to, from any perspective, while you can merely wring your hands and weep a single, 1970s Native American TV commercial-style tear because that other guy is somehow so all-powerful that their shadow blocks out the sun.
That's just the bullshit on top. Nobody actually has that much power over your life, and you, generic non-individualized reader, know it deep down. The problem actually is the little voices in your head with which the accusation of you're doing it wrong resonates. The problem is that those voices can achieve a resonance hum even when someone isn't accusing you of doing it wrong. All they have to be doing is doing something differently, and looking like they're enjoying it.
The problem is you don't actually think you're cool.
This will sound arrogant -- and, y'know, maybe the problem is that it sounds arrogant, and there's a whole sociocultural essay in that -- but: it wasn't a novel sale that made me cool. It wasn't getting an agent, and it wasn't Year's Best reprints or editing a magazine or knowing the "right" people or learning the skills to talk to people at overcrowded smelly convention parties or whatever. Something didn't drop down from the sky and anoint me cool. I have been dead cool since the day I first putpen to paper hands to keyboard. What anyone else thinks about my coolness on these matters is purely secondary.
Or, to put that in less smartassed terms?
I know my worth. And -- more importantly -- I know the worth of my work, and I believe in my work: not that it's unconditionally good or that it doesn't make mistakes, or that I am unconditionally good or that I don't make mistakes because hoo boy, I make mistakes like there's a Girl Scout badge for messing up and I've got one space left on my uniform. But I believe my work and I both are always improving. I am rock-certain of that. How do I know that?
Because I work to improve them. Because I was worse before, and now I'm better, and tomorrow I will be better still. I know that.
So what other people think about it? Not so big a deal, really. I live in my head. I know that head better than they do, and I know I'm cool.
What other people do with their time, even and especially if it's different from what I do?
Wholly immaterial.
Here's the other thing I posit, and I bet it can be backed up with evidence.
You're cool too.
You are most likely better -- at writing, at knitting, at dancing, at your job, at looking for a job, at being a spouse or significant other, at driving a car, at planting a seed, at doing your taxes, at writing an essay, at changing a lightbulb or a tire or a fuse, at being a generous or kind person, at living -- than you were in the past. You will likely get better at these things, any of them, all of them, in the future, even without that little bit of targeted elbow grease and spot of determination, although those things make it go faster. That makes you cool, and you have been dead cool since the day you first took that deep breath and tried something new; since you first expressed the willingness to be better at a thing than you were yesterday with the glimmer of something, someone that is more in your eye.
You're super, mega, ultra-cool. And the only thing more dispiriting than cool people being cruel or dismissive or belittling to other cool people is seeing cool people be cruel or dismissive or belittling to themselves: telling themselves they aren't actually cool enough. That they have to tear someone else down to be cool. That other people being cool differently is discomfiting, devaluing, a threat.
It's not. And you don't have to. And you always, always were.
I mean, don't you ever get tired of feeling so threatened?
Ever considered not letting that feeling win this time, or the next?
(And I have used up my lunch hour anyway. O well.)
It would have been elegant and explained its terms and employed both data and anecdata, and the writing of it would have eaten up my entire lunch hour today.
I want to hang out with my workfriends with what's left of my lunch instead, so I will not write that post. I will write this thing shorter.
Let's be straight here.
The way I see it, the problem isn't that self-published authors actually! make people think! they're as good as you! or that those uptight, pursed-lips, stick-up-the-butt New York writers are such! elitist! bastards! or that some other person is standing in the way of your dream, rightful realization thereof, or rightful recognition due to, from any perspective, while you can merely wring your hands and weep a single, 1970s Native American TV commercial-style tear because that other guy is somehow so all-powerful that their shadow blocks out the sun.
That's just the bullshit on top. Nobody actually has that much power over your life, and you, generic non-individualized reader, know it deep down. The problem actually is the little voices in your head with which the accusation of you're doing it wrong resonates. The problem is that those voices can achieve a resonance hum even when someone isn't accusing you of doing it wrong. All they have to be doing is doing something differently, and looking like they're enjoying it.
The problem is you don't actually think you're cool.
This will sound arrogant -- and, y'know, maybe the problem is that it sounds arrogant, and there's a whole sociocultural essay in that -- but: it wasn't a novel sale that made me cool. It wasn't getting an agent, and it wasn't Year's Best reprints or editing a magazine or knowing the "right" people or learning the skills to talk to people at overcrowded smelly convention parties or whatever. Something didn't drop down from the sky and anoint me cool. I have been dead cool since the day I first put
Or, to put that in less smartassed terms?
I know my worth. And -- more importantly -- I know the worth of my work, and I believe in my work: not that it's unconditionally good or that it doesn't make mistakes, or that I am unconditionally good or that I don't make mistakes because hoo boy, I make mistakes like there's a Girl Scout badge for messing up and I've got one space left on my uniform. But I believe my work and I both are always improving. I am rock-certain of that. How do I know that?
Because I work to improve them. Because I was worse before, and now I'm better, and tomorrow I will be better still. I know that.
So what other people think about it? Not so big a deal, really. I live in my head. I know that head better than they do, and I know I'm cool.
What other people do with their time, even and especially if it's different from what I do?
Wholly immaterial.
Here's the other thing I posit, and I bet it can be backed up with evidence.
You're cool too.
You are most likely better -- at writing, at knitting, at dancing, at your job, at looking for a job, at being a spouse or significant other, at driving a car, at planting a seed, at doing your taxes, at writing an essay, at changing a lightbulb or a tire or a fuse, at being a generous or kind person, at living -- than you were in the past. You will likely get better at these things, any of them, all of them, in the future, even without that little bit of targeted elbow grease and spot of determination, although those things make it go faster. That makes you cool, and you have been dead cool since the day you first took that deep breath and tried something new; since you first expressed the willingness to be better at a thing than you were yesterday with the glimmer of something, someone that is more in your eye.
You're super, mega, ultra-cool. And the only thing more dispiriting than cool people being cruel or dismissive or belittling to other cool people is seeing cool people be cruel or dismissive or belittling to themselves: telling themselves they aren't actually cool enough. That they have to tear someone else down to be cool. That other people being cool differently is discomfiting, devaluing, a threat.
It's not. And you don't have to. And you always, always were.
I mean, don't you ever get tired of feeling so threatened?
Ever considered not letting that feeling win this time, or the next?
(And I have used up my lunch hour anyway. O well.)
